Friends are Awesome!

Last year Nathan and I went to the wedding of a friend of mine in NY. We were excited to meet her new husband and couldn't wait to spend time getting to know them. They've spent the last year in South Korea teaching English to some very cute, young children. Laura blogged about it at Kilpatz Kronicle.
Yesterday we finally got to spend time with them. They are home in the States and have been traveling around visiting friends and family. Dan grew up close to us and loves Cedar Point. Laura has never been so they were trying to work in a visit. Nathan and I jumped at the chance to go with them and we loved having them stay with us as well. We took Nathan's brother Peter with us.
It was a PERFECT Cedar Point day. Short lines, lots of sunshine, and nice cool air. We were able to hit every major coaster 2 or more times and still have time for some of the other cool rides. It's HallowWeekends at Cedar Point so we got to see the really cheesy Halloween Parade with Snoopy and the other Peanuts characters. Here are a few pictures that I snapped with my cell phone.
Dan had to make a Dippin Dots stop. There's a newer ride called maXair. It spins as it swings back and forth. I think it holds close to 60 people. The guys rode it and Laura and I watched. They really enjoyed it. Nathan. Peter. Dan.

There are No Words.

I can't begin to describe my feelings and do them justice in any way. Here's a sampling of some pictures I found on our computer. I miss you so much Daniel. I love you!

Moving July 2005

Fall 2005

County Fair 2007

Sleeping with Baby Grasshopper

Updates

Our school year is off to a running start. AJ started kindergarten. I can't believe that he's 5 1/2, what happened to my little blond baby with chubby checks. He's a lean mean running machine. He's playing soccer again this year and doing great. I think we may have a budding JR in our midst.
JM on the other hand is ornery as all get out. Everything is a weapon of some kind. Everything must be fought. The other day he spent a long time in the tree house killing monkeys that were attacking. I have no idea where he gets these ideas but it does keep him occupied while AJ is at school.
Little Peanut has discovered that she doesn't have to stay in her crib when she's put there so tonight out comes her new toddler bed. She's going to be so excited. This means of course that I'm going to watching her closely at bed time and nap time for the next few weeks.
Grasshopper is doing good. He's still on multiple daily matenience meds for his throat, however, they seem to be working well.
I'd love to post some pictures but since our camera died a tragic and permenant death I can't. Hopefully, I'll get a new camera soon. Hint Hint!!! :)

Hot Hot Coooold!!

As I mentioned before we don't have air conditioning in our house. We do however, have a wall unit installed in our room. That's one reason why it's our room. We try not to use it all the time but some nights just beg for some cool air.
JM frequently gets up at night and moves Nathan over so he can get in bed with us. Nathan usually doesn't wake up until he's squished between JM and me and I'm elbowing for some room. The other morning I woke up early to go help with the yard sale and here's what I saw.
I should mention that this was one of those cold air nights in our room and JM was milking it for all he could. They were both sound asleep and snoring I might add. Yes, Nathan is wearing Christmas light boxers. What can I say, at least the laundry was clean.

Wordless Wednesday *

*and some fashion don'ts!

Hot Hot Hot

This past weekend was almost unbearable with the heat and the humidity. Although our house is nice we do not have air conditioning. We spent most of the week at a friend's house working on the MOPS yard sale. She has air conditioning. (sigh) So even though we were covered in dirt and sweat at least we could take a little break and cool down inside.
My children however, only wanted to be outside. And you can't reason with a 5 year old and a 3 year old who want to play outside.
Friday I think was the worst day for sticky and hot. After we left our friend's house we went to Wal-Mart and bought the kids a sprinkler. We met Nathan there after his softball game and picked out this really neat toy. It was only $8. Nathan drove home to set it up and I took the kids through the local ice cream drive through. Have any of you ever forgotten to give your kids dinner but fed them ice cream instead?? It wasn't really planned but with everything going on that evening that's how it all worked out. I didn't even realize until after they went to bed that I was hungry and remembered that no one had eaten dinner. Opps!!!
The sprinkler was a HIT!! JM loved it immediately. He ran right up and stood over it. He even picked it up and tried to get AJ wet. AJ however, was rather upset that we wanted him to get his clothes wet. He wanted to change into his swimsuit. I told him they were all getting a bath afterward and to just go play. Little Peanut wasn't sure about it at all and didn't really start to enjoy it until we were almost done.
Here's a video of them playing in the backyard.

Memorial Day

I can only say Thank you to all those in the service. Our prayers are with you.

Here Comes the Busy

Wow! What a weekend we have planned. Tonight I have the first Pampered Chef party I've had in awhile. I'm very excited. I'm hoping to make some great contacts and book some June shows. A friend of mine is hosting it and she's so sweet, I'm looking forward to spending some time with her. While I'm 'working' Nathan will be having a softball game. Hopefully we'll work out the kid situation to everyone's satisfaction.
Tomorrow is yard work and errands with the family. I'm sure we'll be attending church in the evening. Nathan will be working half a day and working on his ditch.Groceries must be gotten since today is payday...and bills too.
Sunday we will be going to church and then......my nephew is graduating!! I can't believe how big and old he is. Makes me feel really old. But.....not quite as seasoned as my sis. It's her birthday! Happy Birthday Sis!!!! We'll be having a big ol' shindigg for her birthday. Nathan take notes- I love shindiggs! I can't decide what to get her. I'm sure I'll come up with something.
And as I was typing I realized that this is a holiday weekend! Hokey pete! We'll be doing the bonfire/family thing all together and perhaps I will be on my game enough to post pictures. And right around the corner is Nathan's birthday. He wants to have friends over so I guess I better get planning on that too! Man was I right...Here comes the busy! I guess I better make sure all my house chores are all caught up. See ya later!
*updated- I'm also going yard saling this morning with a friend and all four of my guys in the van too!! What fun.

Water, Water, Everywhere

It occurs to me that AJ hasn't gotten much front page time recently so here's some info on what he's been doing lately. Aside from preschool and the usual church activities AJ took swim lessons last month at our local rec center. JM did too but I had to be in the water with him for his class so thankfully there are no pictures of that. :) AJ did very well in his class learning to blow nose bubbles and working on his front and back glide. Honestly though, I think the part he enjoyed the most was the goggles that we bought him. Hopefully he'll get more practice in since we're planning on spending some time at the rec outdoor pool this summer. I think the goggles make him look like a bug!

Wordless Wednesday

Meet them again

You remember when I posted here about how funny I thought the dinosaur in Meet the Robinsons was? Well, before JM got his summer buzz his hair was rather long. One night after he had had a bath and was in bed this is what I saw. All he needs is the glasses and he will look just like Lewis from the movie. Nathan and I thought it was pretty funny.

Little Peanut's Birthday

Little Peanut turned two last month. I love that she is a girlie girl. With all these boys running around and all the mud recently I enjoy a little girl who loves to wear dresses and have her hair fixed. For her birthday we had cake from Auntie in WV. Here's the birthday girl with her cake. You'll notice that she has two different dresses on in the pictures. No, it wasn't two different days. She started out in the pink one and then Auntie get her the blue one and when she opened it she insisted on putting the dress on right there in front of all her guests. So we did. Auntie got to enjoy seeing it on her that day.
Papa made her a great kitchen cabinet for her toy dishes. Cousin Abby was the 'creative consultant' on the project. She even got to play with Little Peanut with the finished product. Mommy and Daddy got her a playhouse specially designed for little hands.
Back around Easter, my mother-in-law got all the kids a rubber ducky. They each got a different color. AJ was green, JM was blue, Little Peanut was pink, and Grasshopper was yellow. Little Peanut commandeered them all as hers. It was really funny how much she loved those ducks. So guess what Grandma got her for her birthday...four more ducks. She was so funny pulling them out of the packages. Happy Birthday Little Peanut ! We Love You!! We can't wait to see all the wonderful things you're going to learn this year.

This Just Cracks Me Up

My kids love movies, don't most kids? I try to limit how much tv they watch. We just got the movie Meet the Robinsons. There is one part that just completely cracks me up...which is why I got the movie for the kids. The dinosaur is being controlled by "bowler hat guy" and he's try to capture the boy. "bowler hat guy" says to the dinosaur, "why aren't you seizing the boy?"
The dino says, "Cause I have a big head, and little arms and I'm not sure how well this plan was thought through!"
For some reason that just cracks me up. Now back to the laundry, dishes, and house work!

At a Loss for Words

This is what I saw the other night when I went to make sure the boys were asleep in their beds. See that book by JM. Now , mind you, he can't read yet. He does recognize some letters but he can't read. Look at the title. Look closer! Can you believe it! My child took The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn to bed with him. How funny is that?? And how appropriate for this child.

Making Progress

Well, it took a couple days, including time off for good weather. My office/ craft room is doing much better. It's not 100% yet but I'm definitely able to work more in here now. I got rid of 4 boxes full of stuff as well as a large trash bag full of...well, trash. Here are my after pictures. Before

After

Before

After
Before
After

It's Not Saturday Night Fever

Oh no....nothing close to it....more like a Thursday morning fever. High enough that it made my eyes water and nothing would help but laying down. That was yesterday. Doesn't that sound like fun??
Tuesday night Little Peanut seemed quite warm and then on Wednesday she, I, JM, and Grasshopper all had major runny noses and coughs. By Thursday everyone seemed better except for me. I had planned to get ahead in my cleaning and purging this week since I don't have anything scheduled until Sunday.....needless to say I'm now two days behind in that. But the time has come.
My office/craft room is going to go through an overhaul today. Care to watch?? Here are the before pictures....

Did I miss something??

Has anyone noticed that the year 1/4 over??? I feel like I just woke up and realized that it's already April. My sister have both been doing well keeping up with their blogs. It's time to revisit my goals for the year and reevaluate them. I know I have some things to still focus on.

• The first was my skincare routine. I've been doing good with keeping up but it's not quite working as well for me so I think I'll be making some changes. Morning and night will still be on the chart though.
• Prayer time is a struggle for us. I'm going to make it a priority tonight.
  
• Work-out at the Rec!! Well our pass expired in Feb. we just recently got it renewed. The boys are taking a swim class twice a week and that gets me there. Now I just need to use the 30 min. from the start of AJ's class to the start of JM's to get on the elliptical machine.
• More organized...that has been happening but it is still an ongoing process. I've been getting rid of lots of stuff. LOTS OF STUFF!
• as for my Pampered Chef business...it's slowly picking up steam. I'm comfortable with the pace though.
  

I guess I will also focus on updating my blog a bit more too. For those of you who are interested one of my best friends from high school is an MK named Alex. He's currently riding his bicycle from Austin, Texas to Oregon but here's the interesting part. He's going through Mexico up the western coast. He's keeping a journal here and you can check it out. He's taken some great pictures and has some good commentary to go along with it.
More updates about the family tomorrow.

Chicken Emergency

JM has a chicken from the Sandra Boynton books. He named her Amy immediately after he got her and it stuck quite well. No one is really sure where or why he picked this name but it's kinda funny. He loves Amy Chicken.
The other night JM came downstairs crying that Amy's leg was broken. I looked at her leg expecting a rip between her leg and her body. Both legs looked fine to me and I told him she wasn't broken.
"But she will if I do this," he said and proceeded to grab her legs in one had a her head in the other and pull quite vigorously in opposite directions. My advice to him was, "Then don't do that!"
Poor chicken. A couple days later she did indeed get a rip in her leg and I had to attempt chicken surgery during nap time. He never mentioned that her leg was fixed but I haven't seen him pulling on her legs anymore either.

Wordless Wednesday

Conversations in the Van

Saturday night on the way to church AJ asked is Puk Puk was 6 and I said yes.
Then he asked if JR was 8 and I said no he was 15.
"Wow," he said, "that is a big number."
"Yes," I agreed.
Then AJ says, "JR is big and he's going to get bigger and bigger until he's big like Clifford. Then he won't fit in the house or the van."
So here's to you....JR Clifford!! :)

We Just Can't Get Enough

Nathan and I have been watching Star Trek Voyager for quite a few months now. We started with Season 1 and have Netflixed all of the episodes. We each love different characters, he likes Seven of Nine. ( Who doesn't??) And I like Tom Paris. I've really enjoyed sharing a similar passtime. I've been a Trekkie since I was in elementary school, although not in the strongest sense of the word. I never wore funny clothes or talked in Klingon. But I've always loved to watch it. Nathan on the other hand, for all his "nerdieness" had never watched Star Trek before we got married. He humored me for my birthday and bought me Season 1 of the original series with Captain Kirk but he didn't get into until I started watch the Next Generation. It's fun to be able to fill him in on the back story of lots of the characters.
When it came to Voyager, I'd seen several episodes on tv. I knew the plot line but I hadn't seen much. It's been new for both of us. This is a clip from one of our favorite episodes. This is Seven and the Doctor, who is trying to teach her social skills, and yes, that is their own voices. Enjoy!

Can't get me......Oww!!

Yes, I heard that sentence only seconds ago. A stuffed animal war is raging violently through my upstairs! Animals are flying in ways that God never intended for large blue frogs to fly. Giggles are flying just as much and I'm very entertained.
Tonight Nathan and I played Candyland with the boys. As I am in the "Queen" of Candyland it was only fitting that I win. :) That is a story for another time though. And no, to those who may ask, I did NOT stack the deck.
Now they are play wildly when they are supposed to be getting ready for bed. Nathan fully started this so I guess he will be the one that has to finish it. What fun!!! Except for the frog, and the duck, and the chicken named Amy.

Thank You!!

Hey ya'll! Thank you for the two awards....I'm not totally sure I'm a blogaholic but I'm certainly a readaholic! :) Especially Pioneer Woman. She's just awesome. And Shaunda, you make me smile too! A lot!!

Wordless Wednesday

Kissing...

After reading this post over at Three Girl Circus the other day over hearing this this morning was pretty amusing. They were busy building roads and playing with cars.

AJ- Did you kiss me?

JM- No.

AJ- Yes you did. You kissed me!

JM- I DID NOT KISS YOU!

AJ- Thank you for the nice kiss JM!

JM- I. DID. NOT. KISS. YOU.

I got a good little giggle out of it.

I actually made it

Wow! I can't believe it! I actually made it to the rec center this morning. I got up at 5:40 and hauled my not so little hiney to go workout. I came home all woken up and ready to go. Nathan was still in bed and not quite so enthusiastic about the morning. Laundry is going, small fundraiser problems are taken care of, and we are on top of it this morning.
Last night one of my friends came over and we watched American Gladiators. Do any of you remember that show from 15 years ago. I used to watch it on Saturday night with my dad. Apparently he blocked out that memory but Tammy and I sure had a great time last night. They have some new challenges and the same old good ones like Joust and Hang Tough. We were way more impressed with the girls than the guys. It was just fun.
Now I'm off to rotate more laundry and find something that needs to be organized.

During our last House Showing

You may know that we are attempting to sell our house in an effort to downsize both payment and space. Our realtor called last Friday and asked if we could show our house on Sunday. I asked what time and she said whatever was good for us. I told her between 10 and 12 because we would be at church. We heard from her on Monday. This is what our conversation sounded like.
Me: How did it go?

Her: Great! The lady really loved the house. There was just one little problem.

Me: What's that?

Her: Well your ceilings are only 8 feet 10 inches tall.

Me: Okay?

Her: Well the lady has some antique furniture that is 8 feet 11 inches tall so she absolutely has to have nine foot ceilings.

Me: Are you serious?

Her: I suggested she just cut a couple inches off the legs but she didn't seem to go for it. Oh well, we'll try again.

After all that, I wasn't even sure how to respond.

Thursday Thirteen

It's been a long time since I've done a Thursday Thirteen. I thought I would do one to start off the new year. Here are thirteen things I'm thankful or excited about for the new year.

1. Everyone is at home and getting better, including Grasshopper. Checkups are still going on but we're getting good reports.
2. There are 362 days left to achieve my goals.
   
3. My husband has a good job, we're praying for better.
   
4. My new business is very exciting to me. I'm thankful I have a great team leader who's always encouraging me.
5. Jay Leno is back on the air after the writers strike. :) We like his monologues.
   
6. AJ goes back to school today, and starts kindergarten this fall.
   
7. On his birthday, in Dec, JM will be having his first day of preschool! Maybe then I'll finally get Peanut to the library for story hour. :D
8. In August, all of my children will be over the age of 1. Even if I'm pregnant then all children outside the womb will be over 1.
9. The Call-08.08.08 A chance to come together with a million other Christians passionate about impacting our government and our society. Nathan and I are so ready to go!!! and of course our church family too. This one will be held in Washington D.C. on the Mall. Bring your water and your sunscreen!
   
10. I've been elected to the county Republican Women's Club officers. I'm going to be the secretary for the next two years. I get sworn in on Tuesday....you're all coming right?
11. Speaking of elections....it's an election year! How exciting!
12. Nathan and I got to see a great movie over the Christmas break. National Treasure-Book of Secrets. It was awesome.
    
13. I'm thankful for my great friends that I'm getting to know. Nathan and I are hoping to spend more time with them this year.
    

Wordless Wednesday

The icing is gone? Why is the icing gone? This cupcake does not meet with my standards...I need another one!!!

Happy New Year

I've been thinking some about a New Year's Day post and what kind of goals I wanted to set for myself. Each time I thought about it I hesitated to put anything in writing thinking that I would just be setting myself up to not succeed fail. I have many goals for the new year, some great big ones, and others just little tiny things. Then I read my sister Mama Lily's post today about her goals for the New Year and how she feels similar to me in her mindset.
I often get behind in my goals and wonder if there is any use in trying to keep up. I'll just try again when I'm done raising my kids is something that I've thought before. But at this rate it could be a LONG time before then and I don't want to put my life on hold. I want to be a good example for my kids. I want to show them how it's supposed to be done.
So in that spirit, I'm going to post some of my goals for the coming year, starting with the mundane.

• wash my face, morning and evening. Yes, I did say mundane. It's something I neglect because I feel that I just don't have time. But, when I take the time, I feel much better so in reality it is worth the time it takes. Besides, I really like the new Mary Kay tinted moisturizer. WORKS GREAT!
• pray daily with my husband. Often times, Nathan and I neglect our time together as a couple with God. We really want to focus on doing this together.
  
• work out at the rec three times a week. This is really going to be a HUGE undertaking for me. With four small children it's too expensive to put them in the daycare at the rec. $16 an hour for four of them. My extended family is also busy with their own schedules as well. I'm going to have to get creative with my times. I'm determined to get back into shape. I want my next pregnancy to be less struggle on me physically and I'd like to keep up better with my children.
  
• more organized. I don't want to be forgetting doctor appointments, WIC appointments, and all those other things that I tend to forget until it's too late. I want to be more on top of what's going on with our family. This will require cutting back on some activities.
  
• really pump up my Pampered Chef business. I signed up to be a consultant in November right before Thanksgiving. I had five parties scheduled for Dec. Thanks to Grasshopper's little vacation in the hospital I only got to do one of them. I'm hosting an open house this month to get things jump started again. I love Pampered Chef and I really want to do well with it. It's a great opportunity to earn some extra income for our family.
  

That's five. And for now I think that is enough. They are my main goals for now. I would like to revisit them in a few months to see how I'm doing. I hope you all are enjoying your New Year. And if you need a little motivation for you weight loss goals, tune in to NBC tonight for the start of the new Biggest Loser season. It looks like it's going to be a good one.